Outreach

DECO: the Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory

Did you know that you have a particle detector at your disposal? It could be in your pocket right now, or you could even be reading this very sentence with it. That's right, I'm talking about cell phones, specifically the cameras inside cell phones. Cell phone camera sensors are made up of very similar technology as what is used in some telescopes. Because of this, I work on an app, DECO, which uses cell phone camera image sensors to detect cosmic-ray muons. Using the DECO app is a great way for students to learn about not only cosmic-ray physics, but also about machine learning and particle physics, as our app uses a convolutional neural network to distinguish between different types of particles leaving their marks on your camera sensor. We have users on all 7 continents, and although we currently only support android, are developing an app for iOS users. Check out a map of our users below!